


A Land So Wild and Savage

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Little House on the Prairie - Laura Ingalls Wilder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-21
Updated: 2008-12-21
Packaged: 2018-01-25 08:51:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1642544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When they leave Wisconsin, Caroline packs her quilts and china into the wagon; once they start rattling down the dirt road, she does not look back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Land So Wild and Savage

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to BlackClaude, for the support and beta. Title is shamelessly yanked from Stan Roger's "Northwest Passage".
> 
> Written for Unanon

 

 

Charles is nineteen when James Woodworth goes out on a hunting trip and doesn't come back, and doesn't come back, while the sky above turns tornado dark. His wife is a small, quiet woman, and she holds her head high as she calls her children in and seals up the shutters, but the entire town can see her fear in the dark of her eyes, the set of her shoulders. There are five children, the oldest only ten; she helps her mother with her chin up, and her eyes are fearful-dark-defiant. 

Charles is nineteen, and the world is stretching out before him - he puts his gun over his shoulder and borrows his father's horse and rides out of town. The wind whips hard against his face, throwing bits of debris into his eyes and mouth; it tastes like adventure.

He finds Mr. Woodworth sheltering by some rocks, splints his leg and takes him home, but what he remembers best is this: riding out of town with his hair blowing, the dark of the sky and the whole of the country within reach. 

Three weeks later he spends his savings on a tall horse and gathers his belongings into a bundle. He's heard there's land out west for the taking.

 

*****

 

When they leave Wisconsin, Caroline packs her quilts and china into the wagon; once they start rattling down the dirt road, she does not look back. "We'll make a new home, I promise," Charles tells her, and she smiles and believes him.

"Where are we going, Pa?" Laura asks, and Charles reaches back and tickles her until she squeals, tells her, "We're looking for land."

The days are long in the wagon, Laura and Mary giggling in the back, Caroline sun burnt and freckling beside him. Charles can feel the restlessness easing out of his legs, the prairie stretching wide around him, Caroline's hand in his. For days it's just them and the sun and the grass, and this is happiness, he thinks, we could live like this forever.

After they finish the cabin, Caroline smiles up at him as she spreads the tablecloth, and the walls close in warm and hard and near. "It feels like home," she says, and Charles thinks maybe it could be. 

 

When they leave Indian Territory, Caroline smiles, but her lips are tight and tired. "A whole year gone," she says.

Charles slaps the reins against the horses' backs, and leans back into the sway of the wagon underneath. "We have all the time there is," he tells her, and feels the years roll off his shoulders, the empty grass of the prairie spreading out before him like a map. 

 

The dugout house is dark and warm, and it makes Caroline smile with the newness of it all, the grass on the roof and the white walls, the excitement of the girls. "We'll be happy here," she tells Charles, and he kisses her and tells her he'll be happy anywhere, if only she keeps smiling like that.

That evening he stands above the roof; Laura and Mary are playing near the creek, and Caroline is singing by the window. Then the geese come, grey and crying, and a familiar ache stirs in his chest. He tries to walk the restlessness out of his legs, and then he takes out his fiddle and plays until Laura has tears in her eyes.

Minnesota is tired, Charles thinks; the land is tired and the animals are tired and the people are tired, but Caroline wants to stay, and so he breaks the same land over and over, and walks long walks, and plays with his daughters, and he is happy, almost.

He dreams of empty spaces. 

 

When he leaves Minnesota, Caroline looks at him with knowing eyes. She's still pale from the fever, and it makes Charles' chest ache to leave her like this, but she presses her hand against his shoulder and says, "Go - we'll come soon." 

The road rises up before him, empty and open and full of promises. He thinks of Caroline, still fever-weak, of Mary and the future she can never have, of Laura growing up too soon - but it's been two years of sickness and failed crops, and now the land stretches out in front of him, wide and westward. 

 

When they arrive in Dakota, Caroline's face is pinched and tired. She greets him with smiles and relief, tells him about the train ride, laughs as he wraps the girls in hugs, but that night she leans her body into his, her forehead on his neck, and whispers, "No further".

"No further," repeats Charles, and it comes out like a sigh. 

 

*****

 

They move into town after the first blizzard. The claim shanty is too alone, the walls are too thin, and Caroline wants the girls to have a chance at school. Charles agrees, and they pack their things into the wagon and drive the few miles to town. 

The town house is warmer, and brighter; Caroline smiles as she hangs the curtains, and Carrie and Laura peer shyly out the window at the store across the street. "Won't it be nice to have neighbors so close?" asks Caroline.

Charles thinks of the shanty, how the prairie stretches around it vast and silent and forgiving, and says nothing. 

 

When the snow doesn't stop falling, and doesn't stop, and doesn't stop, Charles knows the trains won't be able to get through. 

They run out of flour. They run out of meat, and coal, and kerosene, and wheat. Charles can see the angles of Caroline's face, the fine bones of her hands, and when he takes his daughters in his arms, he feels them all ribs and sharp elbows. And still the trains don't come. 

 

The snow comes up above the roof of the house, and Charles digs a tunnel to the barn. The house is insulated, warmer than it has been all winter. Laura is entranced by the tunnel, and Carrie laughs, and he can do his chores without ever going into the open air.

In the house, Caroline feeds sticks of hay into the stove, and the girls huddle close. Mary is brushing Carrie's hair, in slow, rhythmic strokes; Carrie's eyes are closed and content. On the floor, Laura tickles Grace into fits of giggles. 

When he comes into the house, his daughters are waiting; he shakes the winter from his hair and smiles. 

 

The whispers begin when the food starts to run out, and a few days later the whole town is bursting with it, the story of a man out by Lone Tree with a barn full of wheat - if only someone could get there and back without being caught in a blizzard.

It's a story, nothing more. Charles weighs it against the emptiness of his stomach, the harsh angles in his daughters' faces, the way Caroline's lips get tighter every meal. (He imagines striking out into the white snow, just him and a horse and twenty miles to go. It's been months since he's gone farther out than the haystacks, and the journey sounds like freedom, like adventure.)

If the clear weather holds it wouldn't be too hard a trip, and he's halfway through explaining this to Caroline when her eyes grow dark and dangerous. "No," she says, voice quiet and carrying. "You don't get to take such a chance."

Huddled near the fire, Laura and Carrie are staring at them, eyes wide. (There is nothing between them and the cold but the hay he twists and brings in to burn.)

"Promise," says Caroline, and Charles promises.

The next morning he fights his way through the snow and across the street, and sees the two figures preparing their horses. They're only boys, nineteen years old, with gangly legs and bony wrists and adventure in their eyes. Almanzo is dark and Cap is golden, and they are both laughing, half-frightened, half-excited. Almanzo's brother is there, fussing with their gear; Cap's sister brings out hot potatoes for their pockets. Charles can see the fear in their eyes, but Almanzo and Cap are too caught up in their own adventure to notice. Charles aches for them, for their bravery, for their youth, for their freedom.

They ride out of town with the wind blowing in their hair.

 

The town waits, and the boys do not come back, and they do not come back. The winds begin to pick up, and high in the sky the snow gathers.

Caroline hovers over their daughters, and Charles can see the relief and guilt in her face, because it could be him out there, snow in his hair and air ringing with adventure. (Now the wind brings him nothing but fear.) 

He paces around the kitchen till he's dizzy with it, and then rips his fingers raw twisting hay to burn. The lamp runs down, and they keep on waiting. (These days all his time is in waiting.) 

 

He can feel the winter in his hands. 

 


End file.
